


Ruby Red

by auraofdawn



Series: Jaded Jewels [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Family Feels, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parent-Child Relationship, sad Eva headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21703750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auraofdawn/pseuds/auraofdawn
Summary: Truthfully, he admitted, they aren't meant to be apart. They are to form one perfect amulet. Splitting them was a tactic for safekeeping, for ensuring that if one was taken, the other would remain out of reach. Its one of the many duties he'd undertaken as the unofficial guardian of the human realm. If she accepts one half of the amulet, she accepts one half of the same burden.But she does not hesitate.
Relationships: Dante & Eva & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Eva/Sparda (Devil May Cry)
Series: Jaded Jewels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964155
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	Ruby Red

**Author's Note:**

> This all came from the single thought of “how’d Eva decide to give them the amulet? Did she know Sparda was dead? Did she know what they were supposed to do??” ????!???!! so, uh, enjoy another round of writing sprints from 4am lol

She'd asked exactly once. If it was a ruby. She couldn't help the way her eyes bugged out at the pure size of the gem. In all her years in high society she'd only seen diamonds nearly that large. She was almost scared to ask what on earth he could have paid for it.

He just laughed that hearty, reedy voice of his. "Not on earth," he told her.

Her eyebrow raise only heightened his chuckling.

She'd known so little, been so ignorant. And how could she not be, when she had to piece together the legend of the dark knight with the gentleman who courted her like a lord of an estate? But it was a time they always looked back on, always laughed about. He teased at her naivety; she admonished him for his curtness. But the story always ended the same: they both fondly remembered her acceptance of the amulet, and all that it entailed.

When he finally deigned to explain it to her fully, she became consumed by awe. When the pendants were together they gleamed a bright, blood red. Demonic magic, he said. The necklaces would always reach for their matching power, their twin. 

Truthfully, he admitted, they aren't meant to be apart. They are to form one perfect amulet. Splitting them was a tactic for safekeeping, for ensuring that if one was taken, the other would remain out of reach. Its one of the many duties he'd undertaken as the unofficial guardian of the human realm. If she accepts one half of the amulet, she accepts one half of the same burden.

But she does not hesitate.

She only does when he tells her, years later, upon sight of twin squalling bundles of joy. 

"Someday, the burden will fall to them."

Her look of alarm quickly ignites into sternness, but he does not back down. 

"It will be fine," he rubs soothing circles into her back, "they'll always have each other."

And she gazes down upon their tiny arms, wrapped around each other even in sleep. They'd spent all those months sharing a womb; sharing responsibility would come to be second nature, just like everything else. And as their parents, she and Sparda would see to it, together, just as their unconventional romance had done thus far.

For a few short years, it does. The twins squabble, like any young children do, but they seek the most equal of solutions, raising both boys up rather than tear either of them down. They learn of their exemplary talents bit by bit, in what they stumble upon and what their father decides to tell them--but it will be many more years before they know of their true nature entirely. It must be done this way, he tells her, so as to not overwhelm them with responsibility. The time they can handle sword lessons will not be the same time they are ready to receive their own, nor will they be able to comprehend the truth of their father's own form in the same way five, ten, or even fifteen year olds could.

"We have plenty of time," he assures her with a calm that is over two millennia old. He would know, he should know, and yet.

He does not.

* * *

She does not wear the amulet when he is away. It was the first thing Dante and Vergil reached for as infants, their rapidly developing motor skills desperate to hold anything their tiny fists can wrap around. then they suckled on it, and gaped at their little reflected faces in it, and she knew she had to leave it out. On most days it sits on her jewelry stand, on the farthest end of her dresser that receives the first light of dawn and the last light of dusk, so that she can always see it’s full brightness from a glance.

Sparda had called it her beacon because, he claimed, even without his keen demonic senses to feel its power, its bright ruby light is the first thing he can see of the house. Its spot in their bedroom, like their home and their hearts, remains ever constant in their small piece of heaven outside red grave. He leaves his half with her when he goes on long outings for this exact reason, and the pure romance of it thrills her not unlike the earliest stages of their courtship. How he could keep finding inventive ways to charm her were beyond her short human years, but she adored it all the same.

He claimed to have never considered another human woman so seriously before her--and she believes him. Dante and Vergil would have siblings otherwise, she thinks. And that is the one thing she is grateful for, because at nearly eight they are testing her more with each passing day. She and Sparda had discussed the possibility of having more children shortly before and after their birth, but the years and tantrums stretched them thinner and thinner, drawing her own reasonable possibility away by nature. If Vergil had been an only child, perhaps, but two at once is what closes the subject. There was still the chance if they calmed down sooner than later, and if they both ached to see small, round faces again, maybe. But for now Dante and Vergil are still small and ignorant and helpless. They are a matched set the two of them, perfect for the set of amulets.

It couldn't have worked out more perfectly, she resolved. If they'd been one or three children, only imbalance could have ever reigned in the house, and with imbalance came distrust, unhappiness, and other foul emotions that would have tilted their instincts towards their devilish nature. That, is what she is most intent to prevent. They know their father is a demon by now, yes, but they don't know how _exactly_ , or why. She only assures them that despite what mean things they may hear or read about demons, that she loves them and their father dearly, and that being a demon does not automatically make someone 'bad.'

(she is particularly alarmed when she discovers that Vergil has recently taken a liking to the works of William Blake--a man who was only second to Dante's namesake in hell-themed literature. Blake had been a Romantic, yes, but he had also dedicated an entire epic to the poison tree that Sparda informed her was not only _real_ , as well as a very serious threat to the human world at large. But as she fretted about wording and explicit illustrations in the volume he brought home, Vergil merely turned to her and said that he found it 'interesting.' He doesn't fear any of the more alarming stanzas as she does, and he seems to adore the warm words of the work.

"It sounds just like you do," he whispers. And she can only wrap her eldest into a tight hug, willing all her prepared words and trembling away.)

What a smart, loving boy she has, she feels, she knows. 

Dante does not lack in either of these departments, but he has a knack for acting like he doesn't, which sets Vergil's sincere nature off. It hurts her, deeply, to see them fight over what they should be bonding over, but it is childish. And they must be allowed to be childish now, when they have the time and space, because the possibility of two thousand more years with no room for such sentiment hangs over their little white-haired heads. If she could rise up and push it away for a few more decades, centuries even, she would in a heartbeat. But sadly, her heartbeat is exactly what limits her. One day her heart will stop no matter what magic or science could be done, while theirs' could beat through a piercing blow like it was a mere paper cut.

She merely hopes to encourage their hearts to continue growing, long past they skyrocket past her own height and even their father's. This is why she brings them together to apologize to each other, to give them gifts at the same time, to send them out to play together, lest neither go out at all. 

They'll become more independent naturally, she knows, and she sees it every time Vergil insists on staying in his favorite reading nook by the parlor window, while Dante pleads with him to play swords. She hears it when Dante strums his guitar with no rhyme or reason all throughout the house, while Vergil plants himself like a tree in front of his sheet music, steadily practicing violin for hours on end. 

In these hours, she feels that they can fare better without her constant supervision. She had joked with Sparda that giving birth to twins had gifted her with her own demonic power: that of reading her sons' minds. Sparda retorted that she must have stolen the psychic ability said of twins from them in-utero, because they could never keep their stories straight through a stern maternal interrogation, but she could always figure out exactly what had happened just by the sheepish looks on their little faces.

So she uses these powers for good, when she disappears into the kitchen or the study, her third eye taking over whenever she needed to get a chore done or take a moment for herself. Its in hours like these that she can actually relax in her empty room, watching the ruby's bright light show unfold in front of her.

And then one day, it stops.

At exactly noon, she knows because she'd only come into the bedroom to fetch a replacement shawl after the day's lunch had spilled on her usual one, and she intended to race back before either of the twins could make the mess worse or start a new one. She can spare the amulet only a single, small glance, but that is all it needs.

The vibrant red reflects no light. Instead its clouded by a dull pink despite the full view of the highest sun streaming down on its perch. Eva slides to it, slowly, for fear that her weak, flawed human eyes could perhaps be the culprit, and straining them anymore would do her no good. But alas, the closer she gets, the darker it appears. Nothing feels real until her palms curl around the silver plating, lifting the heavy jewel to cradle against her collarbone, where it had rested the first time she thought of herself as Sparda's wife.

But it does nothing.

The cold metal burns at her warm skin as it flushes her spine with fear and agony. Her heart races, but still feels so cold, so slow, too slow,.

She knows he is gone. She feels it. His beacon snuffed out and his warmth removed from their bedroom, their home, their life. If he cannot see his way home, then he cannot come back. 

Her first aching thought is that it should have been _her_. All the scenarios her darkest fears had conjured before involved her grown, loving boys begging her to stay as the goddess of time and space personally whisked her away. And she would go, willingly, because she is only human and this is the human way of things. Her time would come, she thought, she knew, no matter how many years her husband could bargain for. She would leave this realm first, and her sons would not be ready. It hurt her heart to ever think of it, but she'd known before she ever felt them move in her womb that it would happen, no matter what any of them ever could do.

Leave it to Sparda, the Legendary Dark Knight, to somehow make it worse.

Now no matter when her time arrived, the twins would be _alone_. Their all-powerful, infallible father was gone and she was all that could help them steel their hearts and minds against whatever world awaited them, and they weren't even a decade into it yet. The body would follow just fine, Sparda had assured her, because demons didn't need extensive training, like humans. Demons were just born, grew, and lived. A primal kind of instinct, more potent than any kind of animal that ever existed on Earth, that was what would save them physically. 

Mentally, internally--that was her domain. And she would have to adjust all her plans and fears now. What could she even tell them? That their father was dead? That he'd left so casually only days before and was never coming back? That for all his stories and strength, he'd still been felled by some unknown, silent enemy? He never would have left if it was something natural, the thought flitted across her mind. If something were truly wrong beforehand, he'd have told her, consulted her, prepared her.

Sparda is _gone_ , and all he'd left behind was a pair of wrapped swords and this dull amulet.

She grasps it so hard it should puncture her thin skin, but it doesn't. Instead, when she open her palms and gazes down on the angry rash, the amulet falls apart within them. Two necklaces it now formed, each still lackluster and powerless, but separated. That couldn't have been right, right? Sparda had said that the power would always remain, which was why the twins needed to receive them as soon as they could understand, so that it would empower them, too.

But this was _much_ too soon, even for Sons of Sparda. They are only sons of Eva now, and she has no such ancient power to gift them--well, anymore. They still had so much to learn in the human way of things, and she doesn't dare to assume she can bring up demonic topics now that her only known example is no longer with them. They would only have the legends now, just like every other human.

She'd perceived the amulet as yet another pretty human thing, back then. Yet its their birthright, as much as Rebellion and Yamato are already. Sparda had judged her ready to handle its burden when she'd barely begun to inquire about the true nature of hell. Her boys are small and unprepared, yes, but they are bright and willing and able. She would only cripple them if she was to keep them from their destinies much longer.

She slips the amulets into her dresser and glides downstairs, as if nothing is wrong. Her face is unusually stony, because she has to be, or else she'll collapse in front of them like the human she is. But Dante and Vergil are her children, and they know her so well.

"Mother?" they ask, in unified naive concern.

"It'll be fine," she assures them. Because it _will_ , eventually, no matter what else this cruel world could plan for them. Sparda had said the human world could only be gentle, compared to the underworld. _Ha_ , she'd scoffed, and he only looked at her sideways. That meant he hadn't seen the worst humans were capable of yet--even in two thousand years. And he'd sighed--wistfully, she thought at the time, but now--now she had to wonder otherwise. He truly hadn't seen humankind's worst to offer, and it had most likely cost him his life. 

The hows and whys would have to wait, she realized. Because Vergil and Dante would inevitably ask for them, and she would need to come up with better answers. The truth she would always give them, if a little tuned down for their youth and understanding. But she will at least give them the truth when she knows they will need it. All else she can do now is give them the keys to their resolve. 

* * *

Their birthday is the next winter.

They have stopped asking for their father, though they cannot always bear the mention of him without sadness or fear flashing through wide blue eyes. Their father's eyes.

This is their first birthday without him, and she wants to keep it simple. A single cake that is _theirs_ , not Dante's or Vergil's, with a deft mix of strawberry, blueberry, and chocolate. She must keep the theme of unity alive lest the beginning of their pre-teen years wrest it away right under her feet. She thinks grimly, she'll die before she allows them to even think about truly hating each other. That is unacceptable, and it will stop them from reaching their potential, let alone any semblance of peace. But this, she assures herself as she sees them curl up together on the chaise, will not happen so easily, and this is only the first step to assuring that they see themselves as a matched set.

A perfect amulet. 

"Dante, Vergil," she croons lightly, lest her voice waver and let her fall into sorrow, "happy birthday."

"Wow..." they both gasp in awe and delight. Their eyes wide as the empty saucers awaiting their cake. Eva holds the halves of the amulet out equidistant to each boy, waiting for them. Vergil reaches out first for the gold one, while Dante follows for the silver. The boys regard them for a moment in their tiny hands and round cheeks, before excitedly throwing them over their heads.

Only when the bright gems stop rattling and bouncing around their little necks does she notice:

They're glowing again.

The luster of what she once mistook for rubies blazed a bright red once again, just like their father's beacon. It was his blood--she instantly knew--it recognized them and reignited under their own immature power, completely subliminally. Dante and Vergil don't seem to notice, their attention already consumed by the different layers of cake and which flavors to pick.

She can't bring herself to silence their squabbling, joyous and silly and it may be. Its their birthday, and for the first time since Sparda's passing can she see all their potential literally shine in the sunlight. 

Eva merely rests a warm hand on each of their shoulders, the strong chains of the amulets resonating beneath her fingers, and gives them both a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s super interesting to me how the boys talk about their dad giving them their swords, but the game makes a bigger deal out of Eva giving them the amulets despite them literally just thinking they were pretty necklaces at first lol. Eva’s is the one that lasts much more with them, and I think that was at least partially the aim bc she had to know all the horrible shit that awaited them? She wasn’t stupid, she knew she had to prepare Dante for the worst when she left, and giving them the amulets was step 1 of that plan. 
> 
> I just die bc INHERITANCE. MUTHER. ;___; Eva forcing herself to put a brave face on while remaining so kind and calm with her little demon boys always strikes me how she just,,,, raises them like normal kids. You can have all the crazy demon kid headcanons you want but most of canon is like “yeah they were just normal kids till shit hit the fan.” Like they were content to be raised this way, probably bc sparda knew exactly what kinda life awaited them otherwise, so wouldn’t you do your best to keep that away from your kids as long as you can?? Eva had to be very smart and calculated, not just for witch headcanons, but for all she tried to do to prepare them :////


End file.
